Laura Benanti on Avoiding ‘Emotional Diarrhea' & Her Suggestions For NBC’s Next Live Musical

Broadway fans have been singing the praises of Tony winner Laura Benanti for years, but after her hilariously shady, side-eye-filled portrayal of Baroness Elsa on NBC’s The Sound of Music, the Tony winner now has a whole new breed of fans. “I was walking in the park and a girl said to me, ‘You’re the lady from the TV. I like you so much,’” Benanti told The Los Angeles Times. “I have never felt so much love come my way in my entire career, which is hilarious to me.”

The key to her multi-faceted performance on the live telecast? Avoiding what Benanti calls “emotional diarrhea.” Of course! Why didn’t we think of that? “[These days], we all know what we all think at any given moment,” she says. “But if you look back in our history, there was etiquette, there was a way that people had to behave. I like to play a character who is being forced to behave a certain way but feeling something completely different underneath. To me that is the most interesting and complex character.” Well Laura, you nailed it!

Now that she’s officially trended on Twitter and had a bunch of awesome GIFs made of her, Benanti is well on her way to becoming a household name—but she isn’t ready to handle full-on supertstardom. “I don't think I'm the type of person that could go to the grocery story and have paparazzi take pictures and have people be like, 'She looks terrible.' I'm too sensitive," she admitted.

Until then, Benanti has a few suggestions for NBC’s next musical, and lucky for us, she could easily star in all of them: The Music Man, My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins. But if you're hoping she’ll bat her eyes and play a traditional ingenue, you’ve got another thing coming. “Not interested,” she said. “So boring!”